See bottom of this post for digest commentary.
Am Not – Incursions
Am Not – Extraterritoriality
Do you know your place in this world?
A question among questions, coming one after another, four-fold, in four languages, sometimes sober sometimes red-faced, driving urgently across darkly structured synthetic juristictions, metal thwacking metal, ponderously pounding percussives lending their no less weighted urgency. Questions upon questions to half-tempt a reflection back at questioner in question. Are you faithful to the covenants that bore these limitations? Given the rather contrarian position of the subject, I'm rather afraid to guess the answer.
Taken together, Extraterritoriality (blue tape, 2019) and Incursions (red tape, 2018) could combine to clock in at a solid hour and change, the coolly collected brevity of the stripped-back supplemental yin to temper the red-hot invasive thrust of its fully fleshed yang. And who better equipped to negotiate that first decisive thrust than GW "Biggus" Bush? Gaze into the red, into Hostile Space and into the Pootie Poot. Gaze long enough and feel the fiery return, warm buzz-layers undulating against labored, ceremonial, crunch-hammer, tightly orchestrated worms burrowing through layers of thick, blackened, curdle, higher-ended whine steadily upping tensions, dour declarations pouring forth from distorted voice. The net effect is like some continuously surging, multi-layered, air raid siren, or sustained, fevered, call to arms, any question of convincing in convictions clearly and presently answered.
If the remainder of the Incursions get anywhere near that first Hostile Space, I'd declare out and out victory. As it stands, as is Am Not... or to say, as Am Not is, er...the Incursions range further and wider than one might otherwise suppose to anticipate. With no less than four vocalists enlisted in repping a range of territorial tongue, the honor in the breach is little less than epic.
Onward faithful vocalists, to Feindes Land! This is Berlin, a complex concatenation of docu-clips, goose-stomp, patriotic song. Here Hermann Kopp delivers clear, straight-laced, Germanic declamations over hefty martial thunder whose steady repercussions are drawn out to distort an otherwise airy atmosphere, made airier still by looped and twinkling electronic bleep-cadence. The dominant voice seems to be driving the beat forward even as the increasingly sooty skies seem to be crumbling all around it. Plainly there were still some stragglers because all too soon the rabid vocal railings of What Are You Waiting For? rip onto the scene. Man I do NOT want to be the sorry sod caught bringing up the rear cause you just know a righteous horse-whipping is coming. This is the pièce de résistance, m'boyo, and resistance <THWACK!> is futile. Steel hammers steel with renewed, almost desperate, vigor. The horizon blackens. Burgeoning psyche-swarms mass in clusters of heavy duty oscilla-singe, consuming all skies, suffocating all oxygens, evidence enough that- at least on matters of policy- the scorched earthers have won the day. Fortunately, cooler heads prevail on Cruth Do Bhaile. Heavy handed whop-CRUNCH crashes down with methodical precision as the clearly enunciated Gaelic of Claire Keating gives voice to hollowed-out, grey-walled dirge-whine. Less the militant aggression more the mechanized processing stage, the punishing chomp and grind of gears threatening to submerge a voice already at some remove, as though entering its not-quite-pleased-sounding insinuations from behind closed door.
White Fight / White Flight treats grim sample to blackened synth throb, darkly subdued thud-thud barely hinting at a bit of the old ultraviolence congealing beneath unsightly surface. So it comes as little surprise when the frenzied vocal Irruption of Stab Electronics lacerates the false calm, creeping wheedle-fuzz delerium ascending to a periodic percuss of glinting steely thunk. Some superlative tension finessed into the woven fabric, the threat of real violence palpable, coming in overlapping swells, vocal increasingly on edge, purple-faced, veins bulging, vessels popping, pushing inexorably to the brink, never quite boiling over. Steely thunk is reprized in Continental Drift III, to resolve in a more robust collage of shifting, grating, steel-plate tectonics. This time it is the very matter-of-fact delivery of Irina Chkhaidze, distorting slightly and drifting fluidly into Russian territories. The underlying dirge-drone seems equally unhurried in its cold tonal drift, deep sea quaver willing constrictive pressures on slowly-buckling tubular hull. I'm trying to remember where I heard this before and I think the answer will have to be no-fucking-where. Unique, full stop. Primed now for the irregular, a series of weird robotic bleeps and bloops announces Auf Wiedersehen, Pet. Calm tribal pitter-patter drags attentions into a buzzing, whirring cauldron of arid exhaust fumes, to find in the choice sampled selections, processed and unprocessed, the dark heart, exposed, bloody, beating. What a start.
Extraterritoriality starts with an Exit and ends with an Entry, as though, per the earlier Incursive protestations, to transcend the demarcations that shape their jurisdiction, to set ablaze the paper chains that bind and encircle, to let yer colours flow beyond their lines. A word of caution, however. No sooner through the backdoor than a thoroughly Cleansing Violence sears the air, screaming for promised rivers of blood. Still, this here is more exception than rule (an albeit risky assertion given the project's evident contrarian inclination). But just to keep score: of the six proffered tracks only two of them really rise to the incandescent vocal-driven passions that fire the deepest crimson Incursions. The other four bring an odds n sods agglomeration of stripped down sensibility, post Pistols irony, and coldly clinical ambient shiver.
And now, back to our regularly scheduled Cleansing Violence. Clunk! Down comes hammer, up come the flames, smoldering singe-tones buzzing in a heated spiral that does not, at the surface, strike as particularly violent. Rather smooth simmers of barely restrained fury, the doctrinaire entreaty increasingly at wits end, the backing pulse coming with heightened regularity, the hammer slamming down with animated force, the grip growing tight, choking, shaking, with anguish, indignation, rage, rivers, tears, running red, black, crimson, give us now our rivers of blood! Must it always be this way, asks the sober voice of reason, cum stalker, cum blackmail, as the electro-inflected oddity of Better Together gentrifies pig-squeals of strangulated feedback to a controlled clatter of metal clank. Here it is the cycling insistence of minimal arpeggiated bass keys that propel the piece onward, the voice resting its case, the defeated spirit falling meekly in line. At last a bit of grim-faced humor, post rock anthem serving sampled inertial discursive over deformed mutant Kirsty MacColl and that nagging feeling, just, that certain taste-making predilections have been momentarily cheated. Just ask Johnny Rotten.
Side Entry kicks things off with a Homecoming whose instantly recognizable martial hammering causes bee-line for Developing World. This could be a sketch which birthed Come Home, absent vocal and snare, buoyed with phallic aplomb, sat astride mighty steed, or B-52, coming home in glorious hellfire to wipe clean the slate with ol' pops, like, for good. Then the Red Emperor, White Emperor presides upon the field. In the opening moments, in the cruel sample of tortuous slave-driving, in the uneasy buzz-sawing invective, reminiscences of latter period Whitehouse. Fortunately the emperor is soon to manifest significantly more depth and presence. First with a one-two punch of the beat-machine. Then the thin sampled splay of exacting metal abuse, slapping with a dry, vicious, savagery, tortured voices wailing, perpetually, on the edge of panic. Underlying sizzle-sheets start to double then treble, flattened nasal whir fighting deep bassy thunder. Finally the heavily processed vocal aspersions. At a truly great moment, the buzz-sawing invective pulls back, the cruel sample lurches into perspective, and great buzzing swarms carry tortuous flanged vocals through a by-now quite dense and shifting mass of damn near rapturous, rigorously wrought, cacophony. When none but the sample is left, brutal. The final moments are a deadened, ice-cold psychedelic sheen, fluid quivering synth-waves that actually had me bee-lining again for Developing World. Not that that should matter. This is all sample-driven ambient messaging, and in spite of its pointed, mesmerizing, pitch, no, it is not pleasant. Given the choice, which is by no means a given, I Will Not Be Reborn In The People's Republic Of China.
Digest spew
Question: can the the coolly collected brevity of the stripped-back supplemental Extraterritorial yin temper the red-hot invasive thrust of its fully fleshed Incursive yang? There are other questions, though, plenty of em, and regardless of the current state of my willingness to be reborn in the People's Republic Of China, I'm afraid the answers are best left to the oracle. I mean, this isn't a fucking game. Or is it? Red-hot waves of incandescent fury, tightly controlled, mesmerizing, coming in waves, now calm, collected, now raging, white-hot, never to the point of scorching but certainly hinting that such a scorching is not only possible, it is likely. I would like to declare masterpiece, but there are just too many goddamn pieces, most of which I'm still turning over. In my earhole. In my head. The Red White Emperor knows all sees all but the bishop moves diagonal. Plus I could never figure out that damn horse. Your move, your grace. Your place in the world is formless and only will can give it shape. Check.
